Blog

  • Another satisfied customer

    It gave me immense pleasure to turn this abomination:

    Picture 001

    …into this:

    Picture 002

    Piles of cables annoy me out of all proportion.

  • I’m a boy

    katz moon 031208

    You can click it to make it bigger

  • Film personality test

    Via this guy, via Kottke:

    I will propose a new personality test where you reblog your favorite movie from each of these directors:

    1. Joel Coen: No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller’s Crossing, Raising Arizona, etc
    2. Wes Anderson: The Darjeeling Limited, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, etc
    3. Hal Ashby: Being There, Shampoo, Harold and Maude, etc
    4. Kevin Smith: Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Dogma, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Clerks, etc
    5. Quentin Tarantino: Grindhouse, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, etc
    6. Stanley Kubrick: 2001, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, etc.
    7. P.T. Anderson: Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia.
    8. Errol Morris: The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, Mr. Death, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Gates of Heaven, etc.

    For me, it’s Raising Arizona, Royal Tennenbaums, ?, Clerks, Pulp Fiction, The Shining, Boogie Nights and ?.

    Is there a pattern? Not really – Raising Arizona and Boogie Nights are in my top five movies eva, and I LOVED Clerks first time around and it’s v. hard to choose a favorite Kubrick. Ashby and Morris are obviously gaping holes in my filmic landscape, etc. Better watch that Harold and Maude torrent ASAP.

  • The cabinet of Dr Chorus

    IMAGE_166.jpg
    OK, so this has gone in about 400m from my house.

    That’s good, right?

  • Where the grass is green

    Chuck Klosterman reviews Chinese Democracy:

    Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It’s more like reviewing a unicorn.

    It’s like if Jeff Lynne tried to make Out Of The Blue sound more like Fun House, except with jazz drumming and a girl singer from Motown.

    Somewhere in Los Angles, there’s gotta be 400 hours of DAT tape with nothing on it except multiple versions of the “Sorry” vocal. So why is this the one we finally hear? What finally made him decide, “You know, I’ve weighed all my options and all their potential consequences, and I’m going with the Mexican vampire accent.”

  • Two links

    I’m becoming a fan of Charlie Brooker – he wrote Dead Set, the ‘Big Brother house is the only refuge from the living dead’ TV series, and works himself into indignant hilarity every week in the Guardian:

    How annoying is it? Put it this way: James Blunt is also on the list, and he’s the least objectionable person there.

    New Star Trek trailer.

  • Clickity clack, proper typing’s back

    Apple’s Extended II Keyboards and their ‘proper’ clicking keystrokes are back, thanks to Griffin’s iMate ABD – USB converter.  Coveted by the likes of Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber, they feel very different to mushy, modern keyboards. Think more electric typewriter.

    Apple Extended Keyboard II

    Good examples go on Ebay for big money, but I got one of the coveted model M3501s off Trademe for NZD$1, and a slightly cleaner one from Macnut, a ‘highly recommended A+++ would trade again’ trader if ever there was one, for NZD$12. It looks fantastic next to my iMac, it feels good to have this logo back.

    My setup

    It feels ‘right’, and the din suggests an air of effortless productivity. I’m missing the volume up and down keys and extra USB slot of my old keyboard, but it’s fully worth it. Next project – making a cardboard template for those keyboard shortcut guides.

    Link: Low End Mac on the Extended II.